BoG'r OOC.

Burning Spear wrote:

I am thinking of making the cook into a kind if healer... Isn't that the way that it is on a ship anyway? Cook/ Bucher/ Healer... All roled into one?

Normally the cook and medic designations are separate duties on a ship. However, they can be joined if the person has the aptitude. In a fantasy setting like D&D, you can easily have a person be a healer class with Craft(Cooking) as a skill.

Example: Cynthia, Healer 3 "Ship Doctor's Assistant" Feats: Augment Healing, Brew Potion Skills ranks: Concentration 1, Healing 5, Craft (Cooking) 5, Knowledge (Nature) 1, Profession (Sailor) 1, Sense Motive 1.

Alrighty, I figured you knew. It was more an exercise in character creation simply for the fun of it.

In regards to the surgeon's mate, that'd be the surgeon's aide/assistant, who is ensuring the cook wasn't using contaminated equipment. He was the hygiene specialist, allowing the surgeon to keep his mind on the serious matters of wound and disease treatment.

As to the butcher, it sounds plausible for them to be surgeons (who knows how to cut through bone and flesh better than they?), though the medical training seems less likely. Perhaps they were more used as Surgeon's mates when amputations were involved?

lol, boat looks funny indeed

I am running on the idea of: "Saint Gregorys"
Dwarf Male, (General Expert 3 (for the feats + skills), Cleric 3)
Healing
Know. Religion
Know. Anatomy
Profession Butcher
Profession Cook
Profession Sailor
Feats:
1,3,6, exp 1,2,
Weapon Focus-Cleaver (probably battle axe)
Skill Focus-Religion (Coz of undead), Anatomy, Butcher, Cook

(Doesn't mean you cant bid for such a spot to, as we need all the healing we can get really..)

Githyanki's and cleric levels , Blasphemy I say
(I am innocent, says the little voice in your head..)

Chaotic_Goth1431 wrote:

i think she will enjoy meeting Jhank'kor as well.

I've actually been wondering whether Ben is coming back as Jhank'kor or as a new character. Some of the things he's mentioned about his character sound like it might be someone new.

Plus, Jhank'kor and Pale are both Band of Onyx, aren't they?

Zimrazim wrote:

Chaotic_Goth1431 wrote:

i think she will enjoy meeting Jhank'kor as well.

Plus, Jhank'kor and Pale are both Band of Onyx, aren't they?

They are, and Toril is where Jhank'kor served his tour of duty. He's served under the Firebringer, too...so he'll have plenty to say about the two when the party shares their tale.

Honestly, I keep thinking Jhank'kor's skill set would be apt for combat on an astral skiff, but it fits the story so much better to have him in Sigil while the party has their time on the field. I wrote up an Illithid Slayer for the interim. He will give us some good eyes and ears (unlike J, with his 0 spot/listen), as well as tracking abilities, though not as useful against graith unless they are psionic.

And as a slayer, he will at least give us a 60ft forewarning should any Illithid be slinking around the city...

Benyamin wrote:

They are, and Toril is where Jhank'kor served his tour of duty. He's served under the Firebringer, too...so he'll have plenty to say about the two when the party shares their tale.

Should be interesting if/when Jhan'kor hears about the party members mutinying against a couple of major Ascendancy figures... want me to bring a chair along?

Thanks, Azure, for the clarification.

I don't mind if Ben has a placeholder character.

It's actually the 'Order of the Double-Edged Mind,' though calling it the Order of Mercy would be delightfully ironic. 'Mercy' is just the name of Ya'shenn's dagger.

She introduced it to Azthri'Zhankel once (in the Customs House, I think). I figure "Mercy" doesn't mean the same thing in githyanki that it does in English; the githyanki word probably either refers to mercy killing, or refers to restraining oneself from slaying an opponent because of some important ulterior reason/goal. There might be a githyanki word that refers to both concepts. (It would also make sense for her Order to use a word with two meanings.)

No problem.

New post soon?

Understandable, Zim. I put her more stern for the line-up to fire over each side of the ship (that way we all could volley over the side without being on top of each other). It appears I calculated for a slightly longer ship. With a four person maximum, the skiff would only hold the active players, sans the knight (who would likely spend her time flying about the fleet on her wyvern).

That means the skiff will only offer fire support, unless we plan to overladen her and huddle warriors like mexicans (anyone know how to say "fireball skeet" in Gith?). We could be a gunship between Kirath's fireballs and our ranged weapons. It certainly allows us to remain detached enough to head for a portal at first notice.

Stormwrack offers some spells and powers to offset the issues of favorable winds and currents:

Aside from these, there are wondrous items and staves that offer up movement benefits, such as bonuses to Profession(Sailor). Everfull Sails look super handy, but they are 12,000gp a pop and require a full set for each mast. I figure the Black Fleet, though led by a canny Gith pirate, wasn't keen on outrigging every ship with such expensive magical gear. I could see a fleet (if not this fleet) having a graith Druid and/or a ship's mage who makes use of control weather and favorable winds.

I don't think we should get all the NPc's we can get and their mothers to be the classes/ spells/ skills/ feats that we as a group are missing, this is not fun imo

Meh...

I think that's just an easy excuse, yes, I am conscripting followers and what not.., but that's with the intent of taking them with me, when I go back to Sigil..
Not all classes will be represented in the Graiths available imo, and not all of them will be under our wing, or even want to work for us..
This is stretching believability imo..

Is the Astral Skiff fully enclosed? that was my impression, or maybe I am mixing the Brig with the Skiff..

Some thoughts on dealing with these pirates...

It would make sense to find out some basic knowledge about how Styrrn kept his crew under (some kind of) control. Did he rule mostly by force and intimidation? Did he throw a lot of shiny things (loot) at his crewmen? Did he have any form of shipboard rules/Articles of Agreement? (This was actually fairly common among pirates.)

I'm guessing these guys are basically "absolute scum of the earth" types and will have to be motivated by greed, fear, and so on. IS there any worthwhile plunder from Urmlaspyr that the PCs can promise them? There is the possible angle that if these pirates abandon the githyanki now, all the non-githyanki they've ever messed with will go out of their way to seek revenge against them now... so they'd better stick with the githyanki.

I'm curious about who the 'Dread Pirate Captain' figure should be in the eyes of the crew. I kind of want it to be Ii -- she's terrifying, has the Sociopath trait, and would probably relish the job. Yeah, she's female, but beheading a few of the worst graith troublemakers might help there, and we could play up the blackguard angle: 'She has great spiritual powers. If you don't do what she says, you'll p*** off something big, bad and scary on the Lower Planes.' (If someone else wants the job instead, though, that's fine. I just think Ii would be a particularly scary figure.)

The kind of githyanki who would follow Styrrn might not like knights much, but this is a knight who recently defied a member of the Ch'r'ai. She must have some redeeming value.

OK, I'll try.

(Some name), tiefling. Yeah, a tiefling. This guy exists as a result of some very unpleasant Red Wizard magical experimentation over in Thay. He got away from his Red Wizard masters (his owner died while traveling on a trading expedition with his slaves/guards in tow) and traveled around the continent, usually as a sell-sword or bandit, among various never-do-wells until the Incursion. When he heard that the githyanki accepted some Faerunians as allies, he deliberately sought them out. Githyanki xenophobia didn't faze him too much, since EVERYONE already hates a tiefling. He had also heard that these githyanki were also planar beings, and was (and is) very curious about the Planes. As an ex-slave himself, he rather likes the story of Gith the Liberator.

He insists on keeping his hair very short and shaves a lot. Thayvian slaves have long hair -- the exact opposite of githyanki, who associate hairlessness with thralldom.

He's some kind of martial class (i.e. fighter-y, not mage-y). He has several of the unpleasant personal habits that fit the worst stereotypes of tieflings. His physical tiefling traits are even more obvious than average, and he deliberately plays up his 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil' heritage to intimidate both opponents and other crewmen. Unusually bright, but he frequently pretends to be less intelligent than he really is. The tiefling has a certain love of learning, but hasn't had all that many opportunities to engage in it.

As one of his least unpleasant hobbies, (name of tiefling) likes to play cards and dice. While he's not addicted enough to get himself into serious trouble in the form of gambling debts, he has both won and lost large sums. He's pretty happy with this pirate crew (or he was until Styrrn up and left), but would probably be interested in interplanar travel if it were offered and not obviously suicidal (no day trips to the Negative Energy Plane without magical protection). Currently he's pretty Clueless.

He worships/prays to several Powers, mostly evil, in a casual manner (he's definitely not a fanatic). Umberlee is on that list, mostly for pragmatic reasons. He is more low-key about this since joining a githyanki crew.

He hates Red Wizards with a burning fury and will go to great lengths to kill and/or torture one.

Aye, the main reason for discussing stats/spells/feats, in my mind, simply came down to the likelihood of skilled personas in a fleet, as well as this being Faerun where nearly everywhere you can find a magical being or magic user. I have yet to read (though my Forgotten Realms reading is light and mostly involves a neutral good Drow ranger) a tale where an entire group is magic-less. That would be cool, interesting, and unique...and probably fatal.

That said, I prefer a more literary-based group any day.

Thoughts:

Shark's Teetch is "manned" by vicious and opportunistic Sahuagins. No one rides in their ship because they don't want to be rations. A unique facet of their ship is they have scalloped bevels under the rails which allow them to slip into the water without creating a splash. These slides also serve as kill holes should a smaller craft seek to board their ship. It is likely that the Sahuagins use these to slip over to enemy vessels undetected. The githyanki pirates used the stealthy warriors to great effect when wishing to begin a raid quietly. That is, until the Sahuagins find someone to attack...

Rumor is that they keep a ballast of water below deck for them to immerse themselves in when off-duty; this would allow them to remain on board instead of returning to the ocean every few hours while sailing. They have been known to summon sharks during raids to help cow opponents into surrender, as no one likes the prospect of falling overboard in battle into the waiting maw of sharks...

The sahuagins see the Githyanki as an opportunity to thin the "land walkers" around the coast, allowing the sea race more room to expand and grow unmolested by air-breathers--not that the loot isn't appealing in and of itself. That the Githyanki seem to be staying and setting up shop probably has them rankled, but the fact that there are many empty and burned villages along the shores, as well as a semi-steady flow of trinkets, somewhat abates their concern.

Wauw, I guess I'll take it as a compliment, lol.
Except that the class has certain restrictions I cannot meet for several levels,
Besides that I am not interested in the class itself

Aha, lol, sorry , but sure, position sounds fine

Any normal (humanoid)-being would have that reaction, lol, thats just healthy..